Alumni Profile: Linaya Leaf '65 

Professor of English and Theatre Arts
Rocky Mountain College
Major at Linfield: English, Theatre

What are you doing now?
I am a professor of English and Theatre Arts at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Mont., teaching everything from Shakespeare and Modern Drama to Native American Literature and Creative Writing. Teaching has given me the opportunity to explore other cultures, working in Micronesia, Sweden and with the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes at Fort Peck. I have been able to express my love of drama through directing everything from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night to Capek's expressionistic The Insect Play. My passion, now, is coordinating the student writing and art competitions on campus and serving as teacher/advisor for the literary journal which publishes student creativity. I love helping students write the best poems, plays, stories and essays they can, writing that not only enables them to express who they are, but also helps them to reach for the stars in terms of taking the next step into graduate school and their careers.

In May, I will give the baccalaureate address for graduation and it will focus on 'footprints' – past, present and future. I was a child playing on the Linfield campus while my father studied economics and graduated in 1947. I graduated in 1965 in English and theatre arts and went on to graduate school earning my Ph.D. My children, Aaron Clark and Danica Clark, are also Linfield graduates and have gone on to law school and medical school. The Linfield footprints on my family run deep. Bless you, Linfield College.

Tell us about yourself.
I began my teaching career at Southwest Texas State University in 1968, at age 23 and will retire from Rocky Mountain College this spring. I have the good fortune to be tenured in two disciplines.

The Theatre side of me teaches Classical and Modern Dramatic Literature, Shakespeare, Studies in Drama and Creative Drama (the subject of my dissertation) and directs plays.

The English side of me coordinates the annual student writing and art competitions and the college literary journal. In English I teach everything from integrated freshman writing courses (Writing and Psychology, Writing and Cinema, Writing and Music, etc.) to Poetry, Native American Literature, African American Literature, Advanced Imaginative Writing, to Senior Seminar in Writing: Soliloquy.

How did Linfield help prepare you for your career?
Linfield nurtured the pieces that formed the mosaic of who I am. In drama, I worked with Dr. Lester Schilling, and had the opportunity to play a wide variety of acting roles, from the child, Pamela, in Five Finger Exercise, to Dolly Levi, the matchmaker, in The Matchmaker. Working with other students to create something artistic, enabled me to develop interdependency and a sense of community. I also got to direct a play for the sorority play contest (Ah Romance), which won first place. I am still connected with those I played 'parts' with in drama. My first college teaching position, at Southwest Texas State University, came through Dr. Schilling.

English faculty helped me with analytical thinking which enabled me to write and publish articles on drama in cross cultural contexts and research on drama with, by and for handicapped children which won a national research award and gave me the opportunity to help teachers integrate handicapped learners into the classroom. That analytical basis also helped me guide other professors in their analyses, as chair of Arts and Humanities, and to co-chair a successful accreditation visit for Rocky in 1996.

The creative writing side of me was nurtured by such professors as Dr. Colena Anderson, who told me to write her a poem every Christmas, and to never stop writing. I had one poem published at Linfield and have never stopped writing, in every genre, but especially poetry. I remember that Dr. Anderson used to invite her creative writing classes to her home and serve baked Alaska as we shared our creative writing. She and I remained in touch until her death.

Linfield, as a small, liberal arts college, encouraged me to take courses in a variety of disciplines, developing different aspects of self, which has carried over into my present world, where I have had the joy of cross-disciplinary teaching with professors from every division of the college. The school also encouraged my ethical development by requiring chapel each week, which allowed me to meditate on issues related to my spiritual life. Dr. Frederick Fost helped me to probe myself and my environment through asking philosophical questions about the meaning of life. I am still asking those questions.

My two best friends at Linfield, my roommate and the person who lived next door to us in Miller Hall, remain my best friends to this day. We will celebrate together as I retire from college teaching at the end of this academic year, celebrate how Linfield College has helped shape our lives and the footprints we are still making together.